New Releases by Alumni

In his memoir Learning to Listen: A Life Caring for Children (Da Capo Press), pediatrician T. BERRY BRAZELTON ’40 — known for his insights into newborn behavior and child development — recounts his childhood in Waco, Texas, his medical training, the development of the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale, and his research involving babies and parents around the world.

DONALD FLETCHER ’39 *51 shares his struggles ­caring for his wife in Martha and I: Life, Love, and Loss in Alzheimer’s Shadow (Tate Publishing). Fletcher, who has been a Presbyterian minister and an educator, alternates chapters between their past — his wife’s youth, dating in Princeton, their work and family — and coping with the advance of her disease.

After President John McCain dies and Sarah Palin becomes president, the United States begins to veer toward a theocracy in FREDERIC C. RICH ’77’s novel Christian Nation (W.W. Norton). The Christian Right gains power, citizens lose rights and freedoms, and young New Yorkers push back against the developments.

Girls I Know (SixOneSeven Books), the debut novel by DOUGLAS TREVOR ’92, explores the lives of three people in the wake of a Boston restaurant shooting: grad-school dropout Walt Steadman; Harvard undergraduate Ginger Newton, who is working on a book about women and their jobs and experiences; and a child, Mercedes Bittles, whose parents died in the shooting.

A professor of physics at Drexel University, DAVE GOLDBERG *00 guides general readers through some of the mysteries of the universe in The Universe in the Rearview Mirror: How Hidden Symmetries Shape Reality (Dutton).

The six short stories set in Hawaii in the collection This Is Paradise (Hogarth Press) by KRISTIANA KAHAKAUWILA ’03 include one about a young Hawaiian woman and her white boyfriend, and another about a young woman’s grief over the death of her grandmother. A native Hawaiian, Kahakauwila is an ­assistant professor of creative writing at Western Washington University.

The 28 essays and stories in the anthology The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage: True Tales of Food, Family, and How We Learn to Eat (Roost Books), edited by LISA CATHERINE HARPER ’88 and Caroline M. Grant, explore the connection between food and family. Among the contributors are Jeff Gordinier ’88, Paul Kogan ’88, Keith Blanchard ’88, and Gregory Dicum ’91.

JOSEPHINE DECKER ’03’s feature film Butter on the Latch, about friends who attend a Balkan music camp in Mendocino, Calif., ­premiered in May at the Mary­land Film Festival. Richard Brody of The New Yorker called it “an utter exhilaration of cinematic imagination, a pure high of invention.”

Take Heart (Whole World Music), an album by singer-songwriter BEN TOUSLEY ’71 and Sue Kranz, features ­original folk songs and classic covers, including “You Were on My Mind” (Ian and Sylvia) and “You Can Close Your Eyes” (James Taylor). A longtime presence in the Boston folk community, Tousley has released six solo albums.